A gang killed “at least seventy people”including women and children, Thursday in Haiti and seriously injured at least sixteen others, the UN announced on Friday, October 4. “Members of the Gran Grif gang, armed with automatic rifles, fired on the population, killing at least seventy people, including around ten women and three infants”specifies the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in a press release, saying “horrified”.
The massacre was perpetrated in Pont-Sondé, a locality in the Artibonite department located on the road linking Port-au-Prince to Cap-Haïtien. Two of the seriously injured people are gang members hit during an exchange of fire with Haitian police.
The gang members “would have set fire to at least forty-five houses and thirty-four vehicles”forcing residents to flee. The High Commission calls “an increase in international financial and logistical assistance to the Multinational Security Support Mission [MMAS] in Haiti ».
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Wave of violence
The MMAS, composed mainly of Kenyan police officers, recently began a mission to support the Haitian police, who are having great difficulty opposing the heavily armed gangs who set fires and bloodied the Haitian capital and its surroundings for many months.
“It is also essential that the authorities conduct a prompt and thorough investigation into this attack, bring those responsible to justice, and ensure reparations for the victims and their families.”still wishes the High Commission.
At the end of September, the United States announced sanctions targeting the leader of the Gran Grif gang, Luckson Elan, for his involvement in serious human rights violations, as well as a former member of Parliament, Prophane Victor, for his role in forming, supporting and arming gangs. At least 3,661 people have been killed in the country since January due to violence, the High Commission announced last week.
The wave of violence and a catastrophic humanitarian situation have forced more than 700,000 people, half of them children, to flee their homes to find refuge elsewhere in the country, according to the latest figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) published , Wednesday.
Around three-quarters of these internally displaced people are now housed in the country’s provinces, with the Great South region alone hosting 45%, according to the UN agency.
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